Boston by streetcar, 1903. Boston Elevated Railway trolley and elevated cars.
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2024
- Touring around Boston by streetcar, trolley, 1903. Edison, North Station, South Station, Atlantic Ave. El. Copley Sq. Huntington Ave.
- Auta a dopravní prostředky
I grew up in Boston in the 50s,60s, and 70s. Many of the buildings and businesses in this film were still there then.
I live in New York. I visit Boston once a year & I love it. I stay mostly on the Southside in Chinatown. I eat, shop, & leave @ 0130 PM. The buildings are historical & beautiful.
This is a amazing film..seeing the clocks and looking back 129 years is like a gift..my greatgrandparents lived in boston... Roxbury.. . 5hanks for this film....I'm saving it....
Every time I watch old film footage like this, I love to imagine what the people were doing and what might have been going on in their lives on this particular day....we see some men who were blue-collar workers driving delivery wagons and maybe cursing under their breath at the traffic, maybe some men on their way to important business meetings, women out doing some shopping and debating what to make for dinner that evening, maybe people who were in a bad mood because they had an argument with their significant other, maybe those who were walking on air because they had recently fallen in love. People still have the same ups and downs with their lives, whether a hundred years ago or a hundred years from today.
I do the same and think how simple their life was..............well it is to us anyway, women kept house men worked and that was just how it was, no technology I often wonder if they thought they had hit the heights of luxury with having trams and lighting?
I had known a few ppl who were around back then ( met them of course long ago) they said it was to them an amazing thing when Electric Lights & Radio were suddenly everywhere.. "We've arrived at the future" Also noted now ppl began to not get their proper rest..& sleeping troubles began from being up all night... They did the same things; "Street Racing" Drink & Drive fight in the Bars.. sleep around.. Fight about my Team better than your Team... This was before Income & Sales Taxes, ..so MORE ppl had "jingle in my Pockets" more disposable income than us today.
didnt seem to be any flirting back then either like there is to today, mind the ladies were pretty much covered up from head to toe back then ha
if a man saw as much as an ankle it was scandalous back then
I find myself thinking, when I see a person standing at a corner for example, “I hope you had a loving happy life. I think that when I see a dog too lol.
Very busy in the older years very one go somewhere
I was born in the 60s but I like to see older people
I was born in New Bedford but I live in Boston
Form 60s to the late 80s.
I moved. But I allawys miss Boston.
Thankyou for all the help 😘
You fan Sandra 🙂😇
This is awesome vintage film! 1903: My Grandmother was an adolescent girl then. Great Grandpa Timothy worked in the Chickering Piano Company as a craftsman and tuner.
For those interested the large building around 5:40 is Boston public library and it still looks exactly the same. Cart is coming down St James ave and turns left onto Dartmouth ave at that time.
Interesting.
This was the year of the very *first* World Series -- and won by Boston!
When I saw the "Jordan-Marsh" store, I about popped...(Use to be in Boston a lot)...it was the Marshall Field, or other expensive Dep't store of its day...too cool....
Im thinking wow the monumental aspect of literally everything and everything is ridiculously ornamented and crafted..like they gave a damn..
That's because our ancestors did give a damn. Everything was built to last and public and private structures were ornamented. IMHO, the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the apex of Western civilization. I'm not referring to technology but ideals and intentions.
Like Bilardi says, they did give a damn. You still had some Beaux Arts type buildings, Art Deco, some Egyptian Revival stuff and so forth. The styles were different back then, this is before Modern architecture, International Style, Frank Lloyd Wright, Brutalism and so forth. (Not all of those are bad by any means, but too much of it looks cold and institutional in comparison. If you want beautiful modern buildings, look at Metaphoric architecture (Sydney Opera) & also Gaudi OMG.)
This is the same century that saw a man walk on the moon. Knowledge really increased rapidly. It’s so fascinating to see all these people just going about their business.
we have had more change and increase in knowledge the last century than we have had in the entire history of Man.
I often think about the vast differences between the early 1900s and the 1990s (clothes, transportation, technology, etc.) and wonder how the 2090s will differ from now?
Man still haven't walked on the moon yet. Maybe in this century Man will finally succeed.
*Anon Nymous* (eyeroll)
*Nicholas Johnson* Yes, man has regressed in knowledge, and you are proof! Scarily, the Internet has given nutjobs and racists a wide/global platform. Before, they couldn't even get play at the local public access channel.
Incredible historical footage of a bygone era. I love history and baseball; Cy Young (the cyclone) pitched for the 'Boston Beaneaters' at this time. Thank you for the video!
Have been able to identify where in the film is the Red Sox's Huntington Avenue Grounds? I can't quite pinpoint it.
Oh my heart, what is the nicest of those days
Jordan Marsh bakery made the best blueberry muffins. A part of old Boston gone now.
The greatest difference between this video taken in Boston in 1903 and the famous Trip Down Market Street in San Francisco in 1906 shortly before The Earthquake is that in Boston the streets still belong almost exclusively to horse drawn vehicles with an auto here and ther while in just three years later the number of motorized vehicles rival those that were still drawn by horses. Shos how quickly the car was taking over the streets of America.
True, but the Ford Model T introduced in 1908 greatly accelerated that change.
Thought I might spot a few early cars but didn't see any. I'll have to look again.
Many Thanks for this. As Boston Born and Bred I am grateful. Many of those buildings were still standing in the 40s,50s and 60s. IT's now been many years since I left the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts ( can still spell it) Thanks for the memories.
Shooting a movie from the front of a moving streetcar was very popular in this early time for movies. You can find similar films from other American cities.
At 4:08 the view is on Summer Street and under the Atlantic Avenue El. To the right is South Station and a rank of waiting cabs.
Thee vividness of the film after all these years is a gift to watch every second...you don't see security cameras do that today ..they are all grainy.
Love this , I could watch it for hours, I just may do, I have a free afternoon.
Wow! OK, Bostonian history buffs, somebody needs to map this route on a Google map so we can drop into street view and compare then and now along the route! Pretty please?
+Larry Cebula Yes, and maybe we will see who wins the fist fight!
just go down any main street.Can you see the street sign's.??
I’ve figured out about maybe 2/3 of the route. Trying to figure out the rest and will do just that.
A lot of it looks the same
Larry Cebula this has to be downtown boston. I saw one of the stores said Jordan marsh which is where the old filenes used to be. And further in the video you can tell it's right where baths and body works is(not sure it's still there) but that was right next to downtown crossing train stop
I love seeing old videos of Boston like this. But imagine this video in color in 1080p with sound. It would seem so real. That would be what the people of 1903 would have experience.
Look at all the people!
Up Boylston street, taking a left onto Dartmouth Street, onto which faces Boston Public Library, Copley Square, at 5:39. Boylston street is now one way, the other way. There are no trolleys.
No traffic lights, no stop signs, no crosswalks. You could even drive on the wrong side of the street if it suited you at that moment. Only an occasional traffic cop at some intersections attempted to keep order. This chaos led to some monumental jams in New York and Chicago, even in this early period. People also got injured and killed all the time as they stepped into the street anywhere and anytime they pleased, often without looking, as you can see here.
Great time before people screwed things up
Some drivers' instincts lead to road rage, and no consideration for pedestrians. Too many fatalities led to road rules. Foresight is better than hindsight.
A penny saved is a penny earned ... .
TB,Polio,Smallpox,Scarlet Fever,Influenza ,all that great stuff.
shouldnt that be a penny earned is a halfpenny saved ?
Everyone, and man I mean everyone wore a hat. My kind of folks.
The downside - everyone who wore a hat in this film has died.
Actually, they died whether or not they wore a hat 8-)
As it's winter here, the hats likely extended their lives. @:-)
tim culp My hat's off to you...
Funny how more elegant, civilised, gentler times, people wore hats and that such style, elegance and civility gradually diminished from the 1950s onward, the time that hat wearing diminished too.
Look at all the cahs. And that nice pahk.
At 2:50 the El train is in front of North station. The car turns left and runs along Causeway Street beside it.
Excepting the electric street cars there is no motor car on the streets .it proves that other films claiming to be of 1900 were filmed some years later since .they showed a lot of automobiles rolling the streets
Interesting to see what people wore. Women wore ankle-length dresses and men wore jackets, even in warmer weather. This was before we had modern detergents and washing machines, daily bathing and deodorants!
Totalmente natural vida natural.
Thanks
it's 12: 40 pm I can tell by the shading and the sun shadows
Massholes then and Massholes now represent (;
I would have had to deal with all the dangerous road and pedestrian traffic too had i lived back then. Walking around looked to be rather hazardous back then..... Imagine all of the injuries and deaths that occured from trying to get from point A to point B and/ or C?
This is fascinating....but something needs to be done PROPER to this film! It needs to be ran at proper speed and all that HD "combing" that it keeps doing is making me dizzy! "Guy Jones" is just the man for this job! (Have you seen his channel?).
It’s like watching ghosts
Why does it look like a 3D recorded film omg
Btw maybe they used an older camera for this? i'v seen some san francisco footage from 1906 and looks better 🤔 still i love this ❤
Incredible footage! Would it be possible for us to use a section of this video for a future social media post?
I do not own this footage however it is probably in the public domain. Go for it.
Super 👍
it was a lot quieter back then, and no loud background music, lol
It would be helpful if there were sub-titles that tell you which street you are looking at.
Hello! I'm volunteering at the West End Museum in Boston. I'm wondering if we could use part of your clip to post it in the museum's social media. I look forward for your response! Thank you.
I have no objection. The entire clip is in the public domain.
That tunnel was creepy😨
Thanks to the Redditor that linked my modest upload to Reddit. Pudgyv, aka, canonfan.
The hat wearing made sense to people back then, they figured if you went out, you protect yourself from the Sun.
Nice!
Jordan Marsh store at 1:40.
and what street is that?
jack roark The original Jordan Marsh department store was at 450 Washington Street.
I wonder if they called it the "T" back then ... or if that is a more recent development.
Ity was the Boston elevated Railway at that time and until 1947. Then Metropolitan Transit Authority until 1964 when it became Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (T).
We had all those horses, and then they all had to be put down because of some dude named Henry Ford.
Phenomenal architecture, to bad most have been replaced by cookie cutter boxes
how is it possible!! they lived without smartphones??
They used wax tablet and stylus ))
Yes...they had no sore Thumbs & more $ to spend on things other than high overdue WiFi costs.
madboyfull I agree
We didn't have smartphones earlier this century -- they weren't introduced until around 2007 -- and we got by just fine.
because they knew, that thumbs, were made to hold things, fingers were used for dialing
Americans walking everywhere back then. Imagine asking the average American to live without a car today. I'm an American and I don't own a car, by the way.
People walking in the streets, alleys that smell like horse piss, cars driving wherever they want... Lol... Boston hasn’t changed that much in 115 years
Larry C....This video needs "Dropkick Murphy" as music.
j bouley I was thinking part of the track to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...or maybe the opening theme to "Quantum Leap" with Scott Bakula...
To bad they didn't have color film back then. It would really be like being in a time warp then.
Hat company are filthy rich back then...
*were
Love the music - de Haan's Gospel Mass ???
No it wasn't - I had another CZcams window open and the sound off on this one!!!!
The copyright on this says 1906, does anyone know why this is dated 1903? My guess is it was made by the same company that did the San Francisco footage, and probably other cities that same year. Any info?
The copyright question is answered in the othrr comments.
No actual L ride.
it was so long ago. And so man thinks himself, that all these people are already dead. Sad but true 😌
Fist fight at 2:26!
not sure if I saw a punch thrown. Just some "little" disagreement. "What are you, retahded?"
Funny, because I half joked to myself as I hit play if I would witness any scuffling. After all, I grew up here and we all know Bostonians have this reputation...:)
Probably, after 1906!
School attendance in1903 Boston must have been excellent. Not one child to be seen anywhere on these streets. This is a rather low resolution video. The original film would have looked much clearer than this , like the old Mitchell and Kenyon ones.
The kids were at work, many of them in factories. They helped to run glassworks, rolled cigarettes, operated spinning machines in textile mills, etc. Millions more were employed in work from home sweat labor, a dodge by factory owners to avoid regulations. Upper class children were homeschooled by tutors. A lot of businesses had apprenticeships and employed children to learn the basics. Child labor laws and enforced school attendance didn't happen for about another 10-15 years.
ksol1460tv 1910 was the year that saw the passage of the first child labour laws in the States...
Thank you ksol1460tv and Doyle Perkins for that information.
Actually most kids were not in school, they were in the factories. It was a monumental effort to get kids moved OUT of the factories and into the schools.
copyright tag at 6:41 lists American Mutoscope, 1906.
+akimbonorman True enough. Immediately following the copyright tag is a scene of an open platform car exiting the subway at the Pleasant St portal. Note the heavy construction going on. This was in preparation for the elevated line, which opened in 1901, to use the subway. Likewise, at 7:15 or so cars are seen exiting the subway at the Haymarket portal where the still unfinished el structure is seen in the background. Both scenes date, at least that part of the film, to the winter of 1900. The open platform cars also date the film to prior to 1903. Closed platform were mandated by law in 1901 with the job being completed by 1903. Other parts of the film were filmed much later. I gave the date 1903 because it is the date my source gave.
very little crime back then
my old house!
Is this the vid that shows the marathon bombers?
What's with all the hats?
+TheRealWackyComputer Before JFK, everyone wore hats. He popularized no hats.
+Evan Brunell My father stopped wearing a hat because of JFK
Pigeon protection.
The last hat JFK wore was the tophat at his January 1961 inauguration. He tipped it to his father.
Silent movie
Where is piano music?
In the orchestra pit of the movie theatre we're not watching this video in.
I couldn't spy even one fat pedestrian out of those dozens of dozens of dozens' worth there.. .. . .
We live in a country of "Fat Asses"
trainrover There was no McDonald's then...and Burger King and Boston Market were still some years away...
Back then, it was only the wealthy that were fat. Being fat showed that you had the money to afford fine food and the staff to prepare it. The poor couldn't afford a lot of food and had to work hard to make enough just to put something on the table so they were thin. Now the lower classes are fat and the wealthy hire trainers to keep them fit and trim!!
Astute observation. Must be from eating all meager rations of [unprocessed] vegetables and fruit and fresh meat and shit.
(possibly all that poop in the streets isn't from just the horses)
115 years ago we were riding horses, giggling over electric lights and NOT listening to the radio because radio stations were waaay in the future....and snowflakes today wonder if when the aliens come....if they'll be more "advanced" than we are.... (seriously)
Packard - I am lower class and thin. There is no such thing as a poor fat person. People who are fat and claim to be poor really are not poor. Everyone claims to have "no money" in America today, but I see very few people who are actually light in their pockets.
A lot of people
See a similar film of San Francisco from the same era at czcams.com/video/dGloeX1SpAU/video.html
hard to belive that there all dead now
EVERY SINGLE ONE!
Why.??,And There not All Dead.
maddog ryan Yeah, imagine that, folks taking a stroll on a day in 1903-ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN YEARS AGO-ALL DEAD...WHO WOULD'VE THUNK...
Is there a colour version?
Unfortunately, no. The first commercially available color motion picture process, Kinemacolor, came about two years after this was shot.
+Natasha Perhaps you could negotiate that with Ted Turner.
*JudgeJulieLit* If the man wants to colorize movies, let him colorize movies. It's showbusiness, for God's sake!
no,only black and white for a long time after,maby 25 Yr.
If there isn't now, someone will make one.
Before you get nostalgic remember this was a time period with a looooot of bitching about "modern" society too.
Everyone in this footage is dead... :(
FYI, everyone is dead in this video...
This is awesome vintage film! 1903: My Grandmother was an adolescent girl then. Great Grandpa Timothy worked in the Chickering Piano Company as a craftsman and tuner.
This is awesome vintage film! 1903: My Grandmother was an adolescent girl then. Great Grandpa Timothy worked in the Chickering Piano Company as a craftsman and tuner.
This is awesome vintage film! 1903: My Grandmother was an adolescent girl then. Great Grandpa Timothy worked in the Chickering Piano Company as a craftsman and tuner.